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RPM

A great look for DJ’s and ideal for time telling in the dark, this concept has the appearance of a turntable with its black face raised at different levels.

The absence of a dial or numbers on the round face create a mysterious look, but the time can be read easily; rings of light at the edge of the face indicate hours in blue and five minute intervals in green, in exactly the same positions as on a clock face. Four red LED’s at the top show minutes 1-4. The time display is activated by touching the sensor in the center of the face. Thanks to James F. for submitting idea.

A great look for DJ’s and ideal for time telling in the dark, this concept has the appearance of a turntable with its black face raised at different levels.

The absence of a dial or numbers on the round face create a mysterious look, but the time can be read easily; rings of light at the edge of the face indicate hours in blue and five minute intervals in green, in exactly the same positions as on a clock face. Four red LED’s at the top show minutes 1-4. The time display is activated by touching the sensor in the center of the face.

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38 thoughts on “RPM”

nice. i like the touch sensor instead of buttons. i’d buy this as long as the thickness was no more than 8 mm. with today’s technology, i can’t see why this couldn’t even be 5 mm thick. now, put a solar panel to charge the battery (similar to citizen eco-drive), that would be just awesome.

hey ACE, are you not familiar with the citizen eco-drive watches????? solar re-charging battery, no additional weight added. i’d pay extra for this so i wouldn’t have to buy batteries every year. and what do you mean by ‘small’ batteries. some watches use batteries that are nearly 1/2 inch in diameter. do you know the battery this watch might use?

hey, solar battery is a great idea. i don’t want open the watch everytime when you change battery, it’s risky for any waterproof device. by the way, i don’t think it make the watch thicker.
i also have an idea: you have to swift your finger around the screen to display the time, instead of just touching it 😀

Solar recharging on a watch?! Umm, my wrist watch sits under my shirt sleeve or jacket sleeve most of the time, except when I want to look at the time. So when will it recharge?!

Those eco-drive watches have a complex system (translates into costs more) which goes into a sleep mode (the second hand parks itself on the 12) when the watch is in the dark, then wakes up when there’s light and the second hand zips around to the correct position.

You should also read people’s long-term reviews on Citizen eco-drive watches… when their eco-drive watch stops working entirely after 3 years cuz the batteries don’t charge anymore and… guess what… you can’t replace the battery yourself because it wasn’t designed to replace the battery. This probably all stems from the fact that Citizen overlooked a few things… one being that a wrist watch is more often under a shirt sleeve or jacket sleeve and won’t get as much exposure to sunlight as they expected.

Although, stainless steel or something similair for the top button is a must or else it will leave a bit of a cheap impression. Making the button pressable instead of touch-sensitive is also acceptable for the cool-factor. For this watch I think it’s all about how you use material to finish the product.

I like this watch. As always I would suggest a day and date feature as well. I would also propose making the coloured time rings wider than they are now. I agree with scifirxman that it could be a bit thinner. I like the touch sensor concept a lot, however I have one question about it: If one wears a jacket and/or long sleeves of some sort, will the sensor be constantly activated by rubbing on the clothes? I also like the shiny look when not activated.

I like how this watch it shaped. For a second design , get rid of the touch display and add a analog but with LEDS that light up for the numbers. Then the wrist strap can be replaced with a black leather strap (to reduce weight) and the phone main casing should be then 5-mm or a little more.
This would produce a phenomenal digital/analog watch with beautiful LED lightshow. With a super thinness and light weighted, this watch would be the best.

I would definitely buy this watch. Reminds me of my Rogue. Since there is an AM/PM function i would assume there is also an alarm function which would be great. I agree with what pm said about the date function, that’s one of the things i wish the Rogue had. If you do make this watch are you planning on offering more light colors others than blue?

I agree with pm and BlueMoonWolf, a date function would be useful and easy to add. I wonder if it would be easier to read if the hours were the outermost ring and minutes the inner ring… Also, it would be cool to have seconds running around on a third inner ring.

I love this design and think the simplicity of it is brilliant. Great work on the colours as well; think they’re perfect.

In response to your question about the strap i think it might look slightly better with a more minimalist design but it’s not a deal-breaker. Something similar to your Neon Encapsulated strap would be nice.

Wonderful design! The grooves on the watch face echo perfectly with turntables. As Ace and malweran said, I think it would be better to have the face made of blackened stainless steel for a more industrial appearance to further echo the platter of a turntable. And I also agree with Avatara in that a third ring displaying seconds would be really eye-catching as well. I wouldn’t mind a shorter battery life for a seconds ring.

I think the case and strap are fine as is because they provide more reflective surfaces, making it even more eye-catching, and case thickness looks fine in the rendering because once again, it echos real turntables nicely. One suggestion however, perhaps have an “always on” mode that can be activated by, say, a quick double tap on the face. Being a DJ myself, if I was wearing this watch, I’d want everyone to see the LED’s doing their thing, however I’m usually a little busy with my turntables to keep tapping my watch! Even if there was an animation mode for 12 minutes after a tap, I don’t think I’d be able to remember to turn on my watch every 12 minutes.

Looks great, nice to see another round design!
Only thing is it looks a bit similar to the Rogue watch…could maybe do with a bit of work to the case and strap to differentiate it a bit. Also, the touch screen idea is good, but the face looks a bit bland with so much dead space in the middle. An LCD display, or even some concentric discs rotating would fill up that space and complete the design nicely.

I agree too. I would like to see it without this regular case around the discs of time to see if it looks even better. I m not quite sure yet but I d like to see.
Color and way of telling the time suits me.

I think a beautiful LED light show is definitely to be expected. Since the design is inspired by DJs, the light show should be as intense as the lights in clubs. If you can make the leds of the single minute group to be red and slowly flashing when you look at the time, it will look like it’s a turnable recording a music track, lol.
I’m not too concern about the look of the wrist band, but I do agree to make changes to the pattern of the wrist band(maybe look at some real DJ equipments will help?).

I’m noticing some similarities in the popular designs in the blog. Looks like the customers are in flavor of getting rid of the old “A,B” button operation and put the activate button on the face of the watch. Also a 3D led light in the face of the watch looks more impressive and complex to me (and also others?), but it will make the watch thicker. I hope the future designs can incorporate the above ideas.

I love it just the way it is. I guess it looks elegant, and having bought the Rogue, this is something I’d definitly go after, since I love the “black” design, and I’m pretty much sure that having it like this would do the job in a perfect way. Well, I might not have much to say, but one thing’s for sure, no matter what this ends up like, I’m waiting for this watch too. It looks too awesome not to be bought, already.

i like this watch. Is there any way that this could be a constant on watch. I realize the LED’s take a lot of battery power, but it seems like this uses very little led to display just little dashes on the watch itself. I know i’ve bugged about this before, having a watch that was always on, but i cant help it. You guys make amazing watches, and when I wear watches from your company I want to show it off ALL the time, not just when I want to know the time. I want to walk through a store with the watch lit up like a christmas tree and I want people to double take when they see it in action. I love your watches and surely there has to be a way that with this watch for example that is very subtle in it’s use of LED’s to keep it on all the time. I would even be willing to change the battery once a week just to show off your watches lol. I would just buy batteries by the case, and keep my watch guy on standby lol. Can anything like that be done? It would be so amazing if it could be done.

I just want to say a massive THANK YOU to the Tokyoflash team and all of the people who have commented.

I have been a fan of Tokyoflash watches ever since I ordered my ‘Trip The Light Fantastic’ many years ago and to see my idea brought to life on this site is nothing short of awesome! I really like what you have done with my idea, especially the way the platters appear to float. The ‘DJ’ concept works well with it too, perhaps my idea was subconsciously inspired by the look of cdj’s, who knows.

I’m not too bothered about the size, as long as it is no bigger than a typical divers watch. As for the band, I think a more minimal option might make the face look too big so personally I would keep it as is. My ‘Pimpin ain’t easy’ has a similar strap and I think it works well. Rubber straps quickly perish and look cheap.

Great work on the design from the little information I gave you, I recognised it immediately as I scrolled down the page. What did you think of my idea for the light animations? I’d love to see an animated gif of the lights if at all possible?

Thanks James! Is a great idea for sure. Our designer drew it up in a day. We are planning to open up the blog to others to submit their designs shortly, as we seem to have a lot of people wanting to submit their ideas and we think it would be great to let our fans have a way to directly express themselves and get feedback. A lot of good ideas out there! Thanks again. The Design Team.

This is easily my favorite design of any watch I’ve seen on the site or for sale, since the black version of the Oberon (my previous favorite).

I’d say it is nearly perfect as-is — but I’ll add a few suggestions anyway.

1) Since the design is pure, perfect simplicity, it might be cool to go a little more complex with the functionality. For instance, TF customers are always asking for a way to make the LEDs stay on longer, or all the time. You might want to make it respond to touching the face once by showing the time as you intend, but also have an option where a long-press will make it stay on longer, or permanently. If someone wants to waste their battery power like that, why not let them, as long as it’s only an *option*?

2) I agree with those who suggested that you might want to make it thinner, or offer it with a different strap.

3) Please offer it in more than just blue. A red-monochrome or purple-monochrome version would sell like hotcakes. (This would also balance out — and surpass — the green Rogue and blue Oberon.)

4) If you’re looking for something to add to the watch to dovetail nicely with the touchscreen function, you could include a bluetooth sensor that would vibrate and/or light-up when your phone received a call. That would be incredibly useful for those who don’t like to leave their phone on the table in front of them or within hearing/sight range. I haven’t looked at all of your other bluetooth watches yet, so excuse me if this function is already available in another model. It could still be added to this one.

5) Even if you produce it as-is and don’t add any additional functionality — Please keep the touch-face display no matter what! That and the look are perfect! : )

This is a cool watch i love how its very simple but has a bold look to it.
The whole solar battery idea is very interesting and works great, i know a guy who has one and he hasnt changed his battery on the watch in 2 years.

I had an idea that maybe when u push the center it may highlight your fingerprint in led like ive seen with a program on some touchscreen phones and itouch.

Also a Steel brush for the center would look very cool.

Dont make it too big, keep it quite thin and interesting, a nice heavy steel look but still light simple and confident in strength.

Dont add buttons to it on the side please because it makes it look more simplistic and easy and a nice straight edge strong look.

Last but not least a very cool bluetooth feature would make this thing shine. When u get a call it glows blue for a minute until u touch it then it will shut down to a lower glow. When u get a message it blinks a color instead of just glowing.

Only thing I can say about this watch is that it would be nice to have the outer minute ring illuminated in green instead of both being blue as in the illustrations. It would help with being able to quickly glance and tell the time.
I love the empty center and touch sensor, just great.
It might be nice to have the time indicators be a little wider but it is hard to tell with the renderings.
I’m not sure if it would ruin the look entirely but it might be nice to have the center circle be some sort of LED OLED or otherwise screen that could show the date and day. If it could be a touch screen as well then it could seem blank until it is touched and lights up with the time indicators. I’m not sure if it is possible in something this small but I saw a digital clock that seemed like blank wood until the numbers were shown. In this way it may be possible to still have the brushed metal look and texture while still being able to show day/date features. However, this could all be impossible.
Thanks